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HV 3034 
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For Justice a7id Protection to Sailors. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT 
A MEETING HELD AT 



SHERRY'S 



NEW YORK, MARCH 21st, 1902 



BY 



J. Augustus Johnson. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

Protestant Episcopal Church Missionery Society for Seamen 
IN the city and port of New York. 

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ADDRESS OF 

J. AUGUSTUS JOHNSON, 

Ex-U. S. Consul General. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

My attention was first called to the status of sailors when 
years ago I was summoned by the captain of an American ship to 
quell a mutiny on board. His wife and daughter and the vessel 
were exposed to danger beyond his control. Ordinarily it would 
have been my duty as a consul in a non-Christian country, having 
jurisdiction in criminal and civil cases and in admiralty, to 
put the crew in irons and send them ashore to a Turkish prison. 
But I didn't want to do that because the Turks were very fierce 
against Christians at that time, some 11,000 having been massacred 
in our neighborhood, and we didn't know when and where the 
trouble would end. I therefore went on board ship and gave both 
sides a hearing. The men had refused to work because they did 
not have the required hours for rest; the master had knocked 
down some of the men and put two in irons, but he couldn't 
work his ship home without their assistance. In this dilemma I 
reasoned with all the parties in interest and arbitrated the 
questions at issue. Eather than go into a Turkish prison 
while the massacres were in progress the men promised to go to 
work and take the ship back to America. Rather than lose his 
crew, the master promised to give more hours of rest and better 
food — and thus the matter was settled. 

This experience was burned into my mind by the heat of 
burning \illages and the other horrors of the Syrian massacres of 
1860. About ten years ago another incident led me to investigate 
the status of seamen on shore. Nominated by Dr. Satterlee, then 



rector of Calvary parish, I was elected to serve as one of the lay 
managers of the Church Missionary Society for Seamen, and, feel- 
ing my responsibility as a citizen, from that day to this, I have 
co-operated with its successful and sympathetic work. 

In speaking for seamen therefore I speak with some knowledge 
of their rights and wrongs. I accepted this service willingly — in 
part, because during my official life in the East I had to ride hob- 
bies in order to avoid the melancholic effects of climate and en- 
vironment. One of these was to collect antique coins, many of 
which were encrusted in the rust of centuries before the Christian 
era and therefore indistinguishable. By the aid of acids and 
brushes and coin books, I found that some of the most unpromis- 
ing lumps of rust and dirt were in reality very valuable coins. 
One I remember, although a copper coin, was, from its great rarity, 
marked as worth a great sum. So I was prepared to find among 
the rustiest and most unpromising of sailors specimens of humanity 
in which the Divine image might with careful treatment be brought 
out to recognition. 

Well, I found on examination that the sailor had been for- 
gotten in the onward movement, and that while slavery and other 
abuses had been abolished, while societies had been formed for the 
prevention of cruelty to animals, and for the protection of children, 
birds, fish, trees, forests, historic localities, genealogies and for aid to 
the aged, crippled, insane, and to all classes and conditions of men, I 
found no society organized to prevent cruelty to seamen. Church 
missionary societies for seamen had been organized and sermons 
regularly preached to sailors on shore whenever they could 
be induced to attend religious services ; but Jack was ever an im- 
patient and a restless listener to sermons and services of regulation 
length, and generally he preferred to have a good time in his own 
way during his brief residence on shore. 

Within the last few years, however, a great wave of sympathy, 
a great heart-beat towards humanity has brightened the sailor's 
life, has pulsed and throbbed with the power of the tides, and 
he has seen a new light. He has learned to regard the missions, 
the reading rooms, the pleasant entertainments, the care for his 
physical comfort and the legal aid offered him for the protection 
of his rights as having a direct bearing upon his present life, and 
as originating in an unselfish desire to serve the sailor as an indi- 



vidual, as a unit ; and he goes with more conMence to the chaplain 
and to the mission which cares for his health, his comfort, his 
rights, his money and his entertainment, and incidentally he at- 
tends service, not because he wants to, but in gratitude and appre- 
ciation of the warm, visible and inspiring sympathy shown in mat- 
ters within his comprehension. 

This society, responsive to needs of the man and the hour, has 
been heard before committees in Congress and at Albany for better 
legislation, by cabinet and other administrative officers of the Gov- 
ernment for better enforcement of the laws, and by courts and 
magistrates, consuls and commissioners for justice in respect of 
wages, food, hours of rest, and for redress of wrongs endured from 
brutal officers on shipboard, and the more cruel crimp and keeper 
of the average sailor boarning-house. Sailors are no longer im- 
prisoned for breaking civil contracts in home ports ; their advance 
wages are less frequently seized by corrupt men who thrive profes- 
sionally by robbing seamen, and their food is legally based on 
sanitary requirements, so that scurvy, that horrible plague of sea- 
men when deprived of fresh provisions, is kept in abeyance. 

But there are still many abuses to be remedied and many 
blessings to be conferred before this port can free itself from the 
stigma of being one of the most unjust and injurious to seamen, 
and we are here to-day to consider what shall be done in the 
coming years. 

What we do for the three million of seamen of our day must 
be done quickly. Our time for giving and helping is short. They 
are in port for a week or two at most; their miserable lives 
average but twelve years, of hardship, suffering and dangers until 
death comes to them, generally at sea. 

And when the sea is called to give up its dead, its millions of 
sailors, who have lost their lives in the service of mankind, and we 
are enquired of us to what we have done to save them, will it be 
enough to say in answer : "am I my brother's keeper? " or shall 
we not say, rather, " we have done v\^hat we could ? " Shall the 
sailor, that stepson, that unloved child of our civilization, home- 
less, friendless, without a vote, and, therefore, without considera- 
tion among politicians, without companionship, clubs, lodges, asso- 
ciations in which landmen find zest for life, have no refuge from 
his foes ? Left to the mercenary and unholy allurements of the 



saloon, the subterranean dive, the low and degrading boarding 
houses for seamen, which, vampirelike, soon absorb the vitality 
of their victims ; left to the crimp, who robs him still too often 
of his money and his liberty, he tends towards the human scrap 
heap and floats out to a shoreless sea as rapidly as the swift 
flowing tides of evil can carry him. 

Now, why is this ? Is the sailor not entitled to considera- 
tion ? 

To whose fidelity, staunch and steadfast courage and bound- 
less heroism, do you confide your lives when crossing the ocean ? 
Who cares for your sons and daughters on the voyages for rest and 
pleasure, through fogs and darkness, storms and collisions, amid 
the wreck and ruin of tempest and the horrors of ships on fire ? 
"What is it that nerves the sailor in those dreadful moments ? The 
stern voice of command is not suflicient. Discipline is often 
powerless to control. May it not be the inate nobility of the man, 
his latent chivalry that inspires the sailor to look death in the face 
and give his life to save yours, if need be? This spirit of self- 
sacrifice and nobility in the heart of man, born of woman, is the 
leverage on which we must work to redeem the odds and ends of 
mankind, and fan the dying embers in his soul, and rouse his ambi- 
tion and aspiration after the best things. Bread cast upon these 
waters ivill return again. The kindness inspired by the great 
motherly heart of our noblest womanhood will nerve these men to 
deeds pf greater daring, to acts of more sublime self-sacrifice. 
They will be saved from great moral perils by the knowledge that 
women are thoughtful for their welfare on sea and shore and develop 
a growing reverence for human life. Even now they ask for no 
charity ; they only ask for a chance to work and to live on their 
own earnings. 

They may save or lose a ship according to their morale ; they 
may carry physical and moral disease into every port they visit, 
or they may be made an influence for good on the shores of every 
sea. Once establish the wireless telegraphy of sympathy between 
the sailor at sea and your societies on shore and you will make 
every sailor a hero. 

This claim for consideration should appeal to the women of 
New York — the most alert, energetic, charitable and compassionate 
women in the world. In your pursuit of fads — whether for old 



laces, fans, porcelain, musical instruments, antiques and bric-a- 
brac, bridge wliist, golf, fine dogs, cats and horses — none are more 
industrious and successful. But in your choice of hobbies, for 
Heaven's sake choose among others one having a human interest, 
vitalized with the red blood of a strenuous life, and become 
effective in putting your shoulder under some corner of the great 
bm'den of sorrow and suffering by which human life is bowed down ! 

You have better protection, more influence, more enjoyments, 
more consideration than any women in the world. Your property 
rights are safe guarded, under the statutes here, as no where else. 
Freely you have received; freely give ! What you do here for sea- 
men will set an example to women in other cities and the echo of 
your deeds will be heard around the world. 

Now as to present needs. 

We should use our combined and associated wisdom and 
strength to watch over the sailor, to bring to justice those who rob 
him of his money, his self-respect, his liberty and his life. He is the 
ward of the state ; existing laws are adequate, but they must he 
enforced. His claims should be brought into Court, his witnesses 
produced, his wrongs redressed, his diseases healed, and his loneli- 
ness and homelessness alleviated — and for all these things money 
and sympathy are needed. Humanity demands this. Greater 
New York ought to furnish it. Its maritime interests require it. 
The women of New York can achieve it. Ask the Chamber of 
Commerce what it will do for the sailor when it has completed its 
palatial home now under construction. Ask the Board of Trade, 
the Maritime Exchange, the great marine insurance companies and 
steamship lines and ship owTiers what they are going to do about 
it. Ask the church, the synagogue, the cathedral, what they will 
do to help the men who go down to the sea in ships. As matters 
now stand, a large proportion of losses at sea are preventible. 
Improperly loaded, insufficiently manned, brutally officered, cor- 
ruptly financed, many vessels disappear and the crews go down to 
their death for lack of care by the owners, agents and managers. 
It has been said that for every vessel that wears out in the service 
a hundred fall victims to the vicissitudes of the sea. No Plimsol 
or load line has yet been fixed in America, in which we are still 
behind England. The vessels are insured hut sailors are not. 



6 

Oh for some man of consecrated enthusiasm, like Henry Bergh 
in his crusade against cruelty to animals ! Oh for more angelic 
souls like those of Florence Nightingale in her zeal for soldiers in 
the hospitals, of Miss Barton and her Red Cross associates, of Miss 
Dix and Mrs. Ballington Booth for prisoners, and our own Mrs. 
Foster, in whose honor tablets are being placed in the Courts and 
the Tombs prison. Who will follow in their steps and show a 
Christ-like care for the sailor ? 

Now, in conclusion, let us be more specific. We need support 
for our reading rooms for sailors. We need a launch to take our 
chaplains and legal aid and medical officers from ship to ship, to 
give all needed succor to the sick, the maimed, the abused and the 
friendless sailor, take him to the hospital, to a sailor's home, to 
mission chapels and reading rooms where he will find friends ; to 
prevent impressment of unwilling victims, drugged and shanghaed, 
to take evidence of crimes, obtain witnesses, and prevent the 
boarding of vessels by saloon runners and the desertion of crews 
under their influence. 

The principal ports of England have such a launch. Boston 
and Baltimore have one, but this great cosmopolitan port, soon to 
become the centre of the world's commerce ; this city with its 
annual visitation of 250,000 sailors, soon to be greatly multiplied, 
has no launch for such humane, uncommercial and sympathic work. 
For this launch $4,000 will be needed at once, with a provision for 
$3,000 more for its first year's equipment and maintenance. 

A Free Shipping Bureau is needed, where seamen can find 
employment without paying the illegal exactions of blood money 
by the crimps who annually rob the seamen in this port of one 
million dollars. 

A sailor's home is needed whose foundations shall be broad and 
deep. It should cover at least two full lots facing Battery Park, 
near the British Consular shipping office. Sir Percy Sanderson 
states that last year 117,950 sailors — shipments and discharges — 
passed through that office alone. The location is excellent, because 
near the consulates, the American Shipping Commissioners, the 
Aquarium, where other maritime creatures are gathered, and the 
Immigration Bureau. This building should be large, commodious, 
and ample for 250 beds at least, and be six or eight stories high, in 
order to afford an adequate home for seamen, at a cost perhaps of 



7 

$250,000. It should have on its first floor a Free Shipping Bureau, 
where captains and seamen may congregate and arrange for ship- 
ment of crews without cost to the sailor. It should contain a 
restaurant, where seamen, having a room at fifteen or twenty cents 
each night, may obtain a good meal for same price, or less than 
five dollars per week all told. (Whereas, they now pay seven 
dollars, with extras, which make up an aggregate of ten dollars a 
week at the miserable boarding houses for seamen, some of which 
are located over or adjoining saloons as an annex, and rent of 
which is paid by the saloon keeper.) This may all be done on a 
self-supporting basis, and with some profit, if conducted as the 
MiUs Hotels, owned by D. O. Mills, and as the model tenement 
houses are carried on by the City and Suburban Homes Company, 
of which our City Chamberlain, Dr. Gould, is the successful man- 
ager. 

Attached to this building and connected with its management 
should be a large supply store, with all sailors' furnishings, at a 
fairly profitable price, in order to save the sailor from the exor- 
bitant price of the boarding house keeper and the captain's slop 
chest. This building should have a high tower with an illuminated 
clock and a Star of Hope at its top, throwing a light out into the 
harbor which should be visible to every sailor coming into the bay, 
and through the silent watches of the night, suggesting rest and 
friends ashore. In front of this building the new Launch should be 
moored, with steam up, ready for active and efficient service. Our 
special police officer, who gathers from improvident sailors about 
$5,000 each month for sending home to their families, should have 
his desk and safe and great register of the names of all visiting 
sailors in one corner of a great reading room, and the Seamen's 
Branch of the Legal Aid Society should be satisfactorily housed ; 
all under the charge of a paid superintendent and a paid secretary, 
who should look after state and national legislation and the general 
interests of the sailors in American and foreign lands and keep in 
touch with all societies for seamen. When all this is done, Mr. 
Chairman, if Christ should come to New York, He would see what 
the sailor. Prince Henry did not see, a Sailor's Home^ worthy of 
the city ; not a sky scraper, but a sea scraper and a world scraper, 
of helpless and needy sailors, the high water mark of wisest sym- 
pathy and of intelligent philanthropy. True, the Sailor Prince is 



8 

brother to an Emperor ; but the common sailor is still a man and a 
brother. Prince Henry received the freedom of the city; why 
should not our sailors have some recognition also. The rank is 
but the guinea's stamp. The sailor "man's a man /or a' tliaV The 
American navy was founded by a common sailor, who became 
famous as John Paul Jones, and three common sailors were offered 
the freedom of the city in 1847 and 1848 for acts of conspicuous 
bravery. You might persuade the city and State to make an 
annual provision for the support of such an institution out of 
the millions of dollars it receives from the licenses of 13,000 
saloons and from dives, dime museums, dance halls and other 
sinks of iniquity, which now give a revenue to the municipality.^ 

But we need not wait for that. Miss Gould has built a home 
in Brooklyn for seamen of the navy. Mr. Kennedy has built a 
Charity Organization Building. Mr. Pierpont Morgan has built 
a woman's hospital. Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rockf eller have endowed 
libraries and universities. Other men and women, with hearts of 
oak and the wisdom of both worlds, may arise in imitation of their 
example, and do this great work for our rapidly developing com- 
mercial marine. It is a great opportunity for good work. But 
while waiting for such a Home we want a Launch for present 
and constant use. 

We ought to have a Women's Auxiliary Committee and Chil- 
drens' Guilds to help the " Church Missionary Society for Sea- 
men" in aid of its several reading rooms and missions. We have 
had a dry time all these years in raising money, in providing read- 
ing matter and entertainments ; but now I seem to see in this 
movement of the Women of New York, a cloud no bigger than a 
man's hand, aye, no bigger than a woman's hand, from which we 
may hope for refreshing showers, of blessing, cheer and co- 
operation. 

This meeting will give encouragement to the friends of sea- 
men in every port and to the hearts of the managers of this society, 
some of whom have given thirty, forty and fifty years of service. 
They will feel grateful if, when they are called hence, and can 
work no more, there is a hope that other hands and other hearts 
will take up the work and hand it down in turn to their success- 
ors, until *' there shall be no more sea." 



* The total amount collected under the liquor tax law in this state from May i, 1896, 
to Sept 30, 1901, is said to be $73,604,425.93. See Report of State Commissioner of 
Excise recently submitted to the New York Legislature. 



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